Flawed system strains to monitor ex-prisoners

Michael Taylor, Chronicle Staff Writer

Published 4:00 am, Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Photo: Mike Kepka, The Chronicle

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On Monday March 23, 2009 in Oakland, Calif., Attorney Michael Rains, who represents the officers involved in Saturday's shootings, investigates the entrance to the apartment involved in the shootings that left an Oakland man and 4 Oakland Police officers dead. less

On Monday March 23, 2009 in Oakland, Calif., Attorney Michael Rains, who represents the officers involved in Saturday's shootings, investigates the entrance to the apartment involved in the shootings that left ... more

Photo: Mike Kepka, The Chronicle

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Two day after shots left an Oakland man and 4 Oakland Police officers dead, American flags flap in the breeze at the site of the incident on Monday March 23, 2009 in Oakland, Calif.

Two day after shots left an Oakland man and 4 Oakland Police officers dead, American flags flap in the breeze at the site of the incident on Monday March 23, 2009 in Oakland, Calif.

Photo: Mike Kepka, The Chronicle

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Two day after shots left an Oakland man and 4 Oakland Police officers dead, Eddie Dare, a San Francisco Police officers, mourns as American flags flap in the breeze at the site of Saturday's incident on Monday March 23, 2009 in Oakland, Calif. less

Two day after shots left an Oakland man and 4 Oakland Police officers dead, Eddie Dare, a San Francisco Police officers, mourns as American flags flap in the breeze at the site of Saturday's incident on Monday ... more

Photo: Mike Kepka, The Chronicle

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Two day after shots left an Oakland man and 4 Oakland Police officers dead, neighbors and community members keep tabs on the scene on Monday March 23, 2009 in Oakland, Calif.

Two day after shots left an Oakland man and 4 Oakland Police officers dead, neighbors and community members keep tabs on the scene on Monday March 23, 2009 in Oakland, Calif.

Photo: Mike Kepka, The Chronicle

Flawed system strains to monitor ex-prisoners

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Lovelle Mixon, who killed four Oakland police officers over the weekend, was a typical example of a parolee who was lost in a dysfunctional state parole system, experts said Monday.

From state Attorney General Jerry Brown to academics who have studied the state's sprawling corrections apparatus, nobody had kind words for what Brown described as a broken parole machine.

Brown, Oakland's mayor from 1998 to 2006, called Monday for a strategic partnership of state and local authorities to work on a system that would attach satellite-based positioning devices on dangerous parolees in Oakland. At any one time, some 3,000 parolees live in the city.

In August, Oakland officials unveiled a pilot program to attach global positioning system devices to about 20 parolees or probationers who are thought to be repeat offenders. Gordon Hinkle, a spokesman for the state Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, declined to comment on Brown's remarks. Oakland police officials did not immediately comment.

Regardless, it is unlikely that any parole system, no matter how efficient, would have prevented Mixon's attack on the Oakland officers, experts said Monday.

"We're probably never going to get to a point where we can completely prevent this kind of event," said Ryken Grattet, a UC Davis sociology professor who co-authored a study on the California parole system for UC Irvine's Center for Evidence-Based Corrections.

The circumstances leading to Mixon's attacks were "rare and very difficult to predict," Grattet said. "Violence is very often situational, and the result of this situation is that he did not want to go back to prison."

Mixon was sent to state prison in October 2002, released five years later on parole, then sent back to state prison in February 2008 for parole violations. He was released in November.

After he failed to show up for appointments with his parole officer Feb. 19, the corrections department issued a warrant for his arrest. Oakland police searched three locations March 6 without finding him.

California's parole system has been thrust into the spotlight by the killings, but, in fact, experts say, it has been deteriorating ever since 1977, when the state's determinate sentencing law went into effect.

Determinate sentencing means that when a prisoner is given a parole date, he must be released. Nuances about past offending behavior and whether someone is really suitable for parole go by the board.

"That means you have a huge number of people on parole," Grattet said. "And you have the very hardened, serious offenders serving parole together with the low-risk offenders, and nobody gets supervised particularly intensively."

California has about 174,000 prisoners, more than any other state, and another 120,000 ex-prisoners on parole, under supervision by the corrections department.

As Grattet points out in the UC Irvine report, two-thirds of all California parolees are returned to prison before their three-year parole period is up. The average in other states is about 40 percent.

How to fix the parole system is something that the state has been wrestling with for nearly 30 years.

"In fact, more than a dozen reports published since 1980 have recommended changes in California's parole revocation procedures," the UC Irvine report says. "Unfortunately, California's parole violation process is so complex and involves decisions by so many parties, including the police, prosecutors, judges, parole agents and parole board commissioners, that understanding exactly what needs to be done to fix the problem is unclear."

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